I Love You
by I Can Craft-It
Summary: A Hero's Cuties fanfic based on a prompt from my good friend Coneflower Adams! Felix finds Sergeant Calhoun passed out on the roof of the Niceland apartments with a black eye and holding a gun...What happened to her? Linked to a previous fic of mine titled 'Date Date Night Disaster'
A Hero's Cuties fanfic based on a prompt from my good friend Coneflower Adams! Felix finds Sergeant Calhoun passed out on the roof of the Niceland apartments with a black eye and holding a gun...What happened to her?

This is linked to a previous fic of mine titled 'Date Date Night Disaster!' so I suggest read that one (if you haven't already) first!

* * *

"All right, Mary, that should do it!" the handyman twirled his iconic, magic hammer in his hand before holstering it in the loop of his belt.

"Oh, thank you so much Felix," the Nicelander lauded. "That old oven of mine is always going on the fritz. I hope it didn't give you too much trouble."

"Not at all!" Felix assured her. "Give me a holler if it starts giving you problems again," he tipped his hat as he turned to leave.

A frantic knock at the door interrupted his departure. Surprised, Felix opted to answer it himself.

"Oh, Felix, thank goodness! There you are!" Two other Nicelander women stood just outside in the hall, looking scared out of their wits.

"Nell, Deanna! What's gotten you two so riled up?" Mary asked as she stepped up next to Felix in the doorway.

"We were both on our way up stairs to the roof, just to sit and relax after a hard days work," Nell began.

"—but when we got to the door, there was this loud banging noise!" Deanna squeaked. "We think this building might be haunted!"

"Haunted?" Mary repeated with a gasp.

Nell and Deanna nodded their heads frantically, holding onto each other for support.

"Now ladies, please calm down," Felix held up his palms. "I'm sure there's some logical explanation. Now lets go take a look."

* * *

"See! Do you hear it?" Nell forced her words into a whisper as they ascended the stairs towards the roof access, Felix taking the lead.

"I sure do," the handyman replied in a confused tone. Approaching the offending door, he could clearly hear the sound of metal against metal in an almost rhythmic fashion. He'd never heard anything like it.

The fixer glanced over his shoulder at the Nicelander's cowering behind him, and he moved to open the door. Opening just a crack, the door slammed back closed with another loud 'BANG!'

"GHOST!" Nell, Mary, and Deanna screamed in unison. Before Felix could assure them again that there were absolutely no ghosts in Niceland, they were gone, their footsteps echoing down the hall as they fled.

Heaving a sigh, Felix re-opened the door, this time prepared for resistance. With a grunt, he forced the door open to find…Tamora's hover-board? The device was still active, and it continued to bump into the access door as he inspected it. Sliding a hand underneath the board, he flipped a switch to deactivate it.

What on Earth was it doing all the way up here? The answer gave the 8-bit quite a start.

Not too far from where he stood was Tamora Jean Calhoun herself, laying quite uncomfortably on one of the lounge chairs, her arms and legs hanging off the sides.

"Tammy?" Felix asked as he approached her limp form. Panic set in when she didn't respond. Drawing closer, he notices that she had one heck of a shiner on the right side of her face. "Tammy!"

He reached out to touch her face when she awoke with a start.

"Taste it!" she shouted, lifting a pistol up towards his head.

In one swift movement the fixer grabbed the side of the gun, twisting it away with one hand, while simultaneously striking her wrist with the other. Once the pistol was in his grasp, he tossed it aside.

Never would he have thought the first time he'd have to apply that form of self-defense would be on the very person who taught it to him.

"Huh. Nice one, Fix-It," Tamora's words were slurred, and Felix could smell booze on her breath. Even though they had known each other for a few months now, he had never seen her like this before.

"You're drunk," he concluded, disapproval in his voice.

"Yup."

"Tamora, what happened to you?" Felix touched the bruised side of her face lightly, sitting beside her on the chair. She flinched and turned away. "Who did that to you?" he questioned, his tone becoming more serious.

The sergeant gave him a sheepish glance through her bangs.

"Remember that guy who throttled you at the DDR Anniversary party?"

Felix's breath hitched, and a flood of negative emotions began to boil inside of him. He was cross. That incident was a couple months ago when they first started dating, why on Earth would that pig just harm her out of nowhere like that…

"Saw him at Tapper's, still hated his guts for what he did you, and I clocked the jerk right in the jaw," she deadpanned.

…What was that now?

"You what?" Felix was mortified. "Tammy, you attacked him? Why?"

"Just told you why," Tamora sighed. "I was drunk, and I was angry."

"Tamora, none of this is like you, what is going on?" Felix implored.

"I realized that I love you, Fix-It," the sergeant blurted.

The handyman blinked, absolutely stunned.

"I said 'I love you,' Fix-It," she leaned towards him, but he pushed himself away, standing up. "Say something."

"I-I'm sorry, Tamora. I'm sorry that I'm not weeping tears of joy and leaping into your arms at the fact that you just implied that 'realizing that you love me' caused you to—to—" Felix counted her offenses on his fingers. "One, go out and get so incredibly drunk that you—two, attack a person who was minding his own business," Felix paused to take in a couple shaky breaths.

Tamora had never seen him so upset.

"Three! Three—you get on your hover board, fly all the way up here; it's a miracle you didn't fall. And you scare three of my tenants half to death, pull a gun on me and—and I don't even know how much of this is still the booze talking!" he huffed. "So w-what did you expect me to say, Tammy? That 'I love you too' and all would be okay?"

Felix held his arms out with an exasperated expression, welcoming any sort of explanation or answer from her.

"Felix, it's not—" Tamora began. "It's complicated…I didn't mean to—" She stopped, squeezing her eyes shut, frustrated at her inability to find the right words.

Felix seemed to consider her words, and his arms flopped back to his sides. He sighed, nodding his head softly.

"I think it'd be better if we talk about this another time, when we're both in a better state of mind," Felix walked up to her, magic hammer in hand and tapped it on the right side of her face.

Calhoun felt a warm tingle flow across her features, and just like that, the dull pain was gone.

"Can you walk?" Felix asked.

Tamora nodded her head solemnly.

* * *

There was an intense quiet between the couple as they exited 'Fix-It Felix Jr.' Fortunately, it was late enough in the evening that Game Central Station wasn't as crowded. Less people to steer through.

Felix walked along beside Tamora, doing his best to keep her stable despite his stature. Every now and then, Tamora would stumble and place her hand on the top of his head for extra support as they walked across the way to the outlet of 'Hero's Duty.'

Entering the outlet, they saw Kohut just about to get on the train.

"Oh, Kohut!" Felix waved a hand, getting the Corporal's attention. "Do you mind taking Tammy back to her quarters? She's had a little too much to drink."

"Oh, uh, sure!" Kohut looked back and forth between his commanding officer and her little handyman of a boyfriend. He could tell something was off.

"Thanks, I really do appreciate it. I'd do it myself, but I've got some things I need to take care of before the nights through," Felix explained.

"Thanks for taking me this far, Short-stack," Calhoun stepped next to Kohut. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Goodnight, Tamora," Felix backed up, tipping his hat. "Kohut."

The corporal let out a low whistle as soon as the fixer was out of sight.

"I know a cold shoulder when I see one, T.J.," he said. "First lovers quarrel?"

"I screwed up, Kohut," Tamora sighed. "I really screwed up."

* * *

"Uhm, e-excuse me sir. I'm looking for a character from your game," Felix clapped his hands together as he spoke to who appeared to be a blacksmith hard at work. He was the first resident of the new fantasy hack n' slash game the fixer happened upon when entering.

"Who ya lookin' for, son?" the blacksmith grunted, removing a red-hot piece of metal from the furnace and laying it atop the anvil, hammering it into shape.

"Uh, well—he's half man and half boar?" Felix said between hammer strikes.

"Ah," the larger man paused his current task. "He strolled on by not too long ago. Ye'll find him just down the road and through the woods to the left."

The handyman bid the Smith farewell, and set on his way. Not too long after, Felix veered off the dirt road and walked through heavy brush into a clearing; within it was a poorly kept tent and a small campfire.

"Hello? Is anyone home?" Felix inquired, removing his cap.

"Who's there?" sounded the gravely voice of the boar-man, his head poking out from the front flaps of his tent. His beady eyes met the 8-bits. "You."

"Yes. Evening, sir," despite being a bit fearful of the creature before him, Felix remained calm and cordial. "I came all this way to—"

"You and your crazy-ass girlfriend; just stay away from me!" the boar pleaded.

"I wanted to apologize on Tamora's behalf, sir. What she did at Tapper's was unjustified, and uncalled for," Felix wrung his cap in his hands. "And while this doesn't excuse her actions, she was…very drunk. Her better judgment was impaired. I'm sorry."

The boar-man slowly exited his tent, rising up to his full height before the little handyman. Heaving a sigh, the large creature plopped down on one of the logs beside the campfire.

"Thanks," he moped, and invited Felix to sit on the adjacent log. The fixer accepted.

"I just figured it was karma coming back to kick me in the teeth," the boar continued. "I'm sorry too, by the way, for what I did to you. I was aggressive and mean, and I've been trying to better myself. Been goin' to 'Bad Anon' for a few weeks now."

Well, having a heart-to-heart with a man who almost killed him once was definitely the last thing Felix was expecting to happen tonight. But it seemed that the boar's sentiments were genuine.

"Oh, it's water under the bridge, don't worry about it," Felix said, pulling out his hammer. "If you'd like, I can heal-up that jaw of yours?"

* * *

The handyman was feeling much better after talking to the boar-man, but his outburst towards Tamora played over and over in the back of his mind as he desperately tried to sleep.

The more he thought about it, the more anxious he grew… had he overreacted? Was he too harsh?

With a huff, the handyman hopped out of bed and dressed himself to go back over to 'Hero's Duty.'

He hated leaving a problem unresolved.

* * *

Tamora was sitting on her bed, thumbing Dr. Brad Scott's old dog tags, when she heard a knock at her door. Getting up, she answered, sincerely surprised to see Fix-It at the door.

"Hi, Tammy," he started, meekly. "Listen, I—I realize now that I may have been a little…dismissive and inconsiderate about your feelings. The things you did tonight weren't right… but I know you have a past, and that makes things hard, and you were hurting and—and I wasn't there for you like I should have been."

The handyman blinked away the tears at the corners of his eyes.

"I'm so, so sorry, Tam. I—" he was cut off when Tamora swooped down, wrapping her arms around him in a tight embrace. Choking back his tears, Felix wrapped his arms around her neck.

"And I love you too," he chuckled. "Heck, I've loved you since day one, Tammy Jean."

"Turning it into a competition, are we?" Tamora pulled away with a smirk.

Felix noticed that her eyes were also wet with tears, and gently wiped them away with his thumb.

"Let's talk this out, Tammy," he said. "If you'd like, we can get some some coffee?"

"Sounds good, Fix-It," the sergeant smiled. "Let's talk."


End file.
